The Dems’ drilling rhetoric just ain’t cutting it
Here’s some snort-worthy handwringing collected in the WSJ’s Political Perceptions blog. The Dems know they’re getting whipped like cheap margarine on this issue, and they’re looking for new ways around that:
The New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg argues that’s because they’re making the wrong arguments. Saying that the idea is a gimmick, won’t produce results quickly or isn’t a complete answer to America’s energy problems isn’t very effective, he writes. The better argument: Because oil is a global commodity, whatever the U.S. drills from off its own coasts doesn’t go directly to America but gets spread out on a world market. “The point is easy to understand,” Hertzberg writes. “We take all the risks. We pay all the costs. But we don’t get all the benefits, such as they are. Once the oil comes out, some time in the far future, it gets sold to whoever’s buying at that day’s price. The impact on price will be spread across the globe—which is why, as even the Bush Administration’s Department of Energy admits, that impact will be ‘insignificant.’” Bottom line, he says: “It’s a drop in the bucket, and it’s not even our bucket. It’s China’s, India’s, Europe’s—everybody’s. We get a thimbleful. But our wind and our sunlight aren’t going anywhere.”
Hertzberg’s example, deriding energy savings of a few pennies per gallon down the road, doesn’t really explain what’s wrong with saving a few pennies per gallon down the road. Save me a dollar a tank? Where’s the downside? Is there any reason besides reactionary NIMBY environmentalism not to do this?
Besides, gasoline by me has dropped about a quarter a gallon over the past couple of weeks. That’s real money–nearly five dollars a tank I’m saving. (Well, it’s real money to me; maybe it’s just a drop in the bucket to Hendrik Hertzberg.)
Also, if we drill, that’s money that will enrich American oilmen instead of Saudi princes, the Mexican national treasury, and Venezuelan caudillos. What’s more, the American oilmen pay taxes on that income in America. We like it when that happens. Well, not really. Most conservative ideologues want to roll back the income tax. But if some treasury’s going to get the benefit of the oil trade, how about ours?
Without even drilling, the prices are already sliding. Do you think that was the earnest discussions of wind power that brought the prices down? Did everyone just take Obama’s advice and inflate their tires? Or have changing attitudes toward exploration put an end to wild speculation on oil prices?
I suspect your answer to that question will depend on whether you have a D or an R after your name.
Well, the WSJ has some more examples of political rhetoric that are worth your attention–but when you’re done let me send you over to the New York Times, where we see Montana’s Democratic governor assuring Montanans that
Obama ”ain’t ever going to take your gun away.”
The NRA disagrees with governor Schweitzer. So do I.
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LATE NIGHT AFTERTHOUGHT: I’m still up, working through my backlog of e-mails about registration troubles, but I was thinking about the second story:
Montana? Obama thinks he can carry Montana, and is spending money there?
That’s some kind of audacity, all right.
_____________________
{Post by See-Dubya}
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Trackbacks
- Nancy Pelosi Passes Gas « I Took The Red Pill (and escaped the Matrix)
- The Dems’ drilling rhetoric just ain’t cutting it — The 2008 Elections
- The Georgia Crisis and Nancy Pelosi
- Obama Uses Don Quixote Windmill Logic: « Riggword Weblog
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Compromise? Liberals don’t buy any oil or use any electricity generated by oil or coal and the rest of us are free to do so?
Liberals can build all the windmills and solar generators they want, plus the power grid to deliver it and pay for it them selves? They can pay for their own public transportation and bike paths.
Would that be fair? We could call it Pro-Choice. Liberals like to say Pro-Choice.
There is indeed a new solar collection method that will help with local electricity generation. But it will be quite compact, local and not dependant on the power grid. And therefore the Liberals will not endorse it; the government would not be able to control usage. It would not be a cure all but it will certainly help. But it is not big, expensive and will not create huge numbers of Government regulations so it will struggle. But it will come. Even Drs. Gloom and Doom can’t stop everything, try as they may.
Wind Power? The world’s leader, Denmark, with their North Sea winds are not happy. Wind is just not all that reliable. Tax credits and subsidies do not change physical laws. But Liberals think they can get the Ninth Court of Appeals to change the Laws of Physics.
Just as it is too risky to assume that we will somehow have gotten around to figuring out viable alternative energy by the time we really need them. Which is why we need to tie drilling to a commitment for R&D on alternatives.
This is easy…I live in Texas…
The more we drill, the more I can drive
the BIG trucks….because fuel is cheaper…and the kids want to eat…
it’s a win win for everybody …
We use less than 24% of the oil and are responsible for over 27% of the worlds GDP. We’re not getting our fair share!
No, drill for oil.
Get you commitment elsewhere. Why don’t you start a research company and invent something? Your money, not mine, you get to keep any after tax profits, not me.
A tax on woodenships did not develope railroads, a tax on mule trains did not develope the automobile and a tax on shoes did not develope the airplane. But taxes on the American people have created a lot of jobs for people who do no good thing.
IF alternative energy sources come on line it will be because people who KNOW things developed them. People who KNOW things generally do not run government agencies although people who run government agencies know important people. Two different issues there.
We await your new enterprise.
Well said.
It seems like there were actually two railroad companies competing to see who could reach the end first, weren’t there, one using solely private funding and the other using government subsidy. Which one reached the goal first?
Well, I haven’t run across anything on the funding being different for Central Pacific and Union Pacific. But, I could have sworn there was something about that in there. Maybe, I am thinking of something else. Hmmm?
And of course, these subsidizes for the railroads were paid by the woodenship industry, right chapoutier? You must have forgotten to copy-paste that part.
Well, it would appear that I was mistaken.
chapoutier, perhaps there is some confusion over the how or from where Congress would get the commitment you are proposing.
Your example on railroad is noted, but what is missing is the notion that other modes of transportation were taxed more or otherwise handicapped in order to promote the railroad production.
The same could be said about the highway system which was developed as a means of defense for the country.
For the most part, I do not oppose incentives so long as they are appropriate. None of this; however, speaks to restricting the existing technology as a means to falsely encourage innovation.
No because I was never claiming to tax the oil industry to pay for the new technologies, though I know others have, through the windfall tax (which I oppose). AND his apparent claim was that all of these things were developed through private industry. My point was that the development of the railroad was a collaboration between government and private sector. And actually I have no idea how the US paid for all that railroad subsidization. Maybe they DID levy additional taxes on covered wagons.
I won’t even go into the fact that so much of aviation technology was developed by the military or military contractors before being put into use by the private commercial sector.
True. But the only way there is going to be political will from the dems on drilling or from the repubs on alt energy research is if they are linked together. So lets make everyone happy.
An interesting observation…
One of presidential candidates wants to cut military spending on new technology.
…just an observation of my own, but not really directed at you, Chap.
And railroads were well establish before the Act of 1862. And the Act of 1862 took private land from thousands of small farmers and ranchers w/o compensation. Ten of thousands of miles of railroad track were dropped all over this country with out Old Abe’s help. Old Abe’s railroads were monopolies that bled the west dry for generations.
We are not impressed.
The government gave the railroads lots of money and land but railroad technology was well developed by then.
Wasn’t it Abraham Lincoln who suspended habeus corpus eighty + years before President Bush was born? I am surprised you mentioned him, he being an early Karl Rove. And Old Abe started a WAR when he had Fort Sumpter fire on Charleston! I am surprised you mentioned him 2.
I like Old Abe for a lot of reasons; the Act of 1862 wasn’t one of them. Way too many companies and industries live off the government dole–they are welfare queens too.
Not doubting you, but could you point to where Obama has endorsed this?
Would this make America happy, though? If the only reason to link the two is to settle partisan differences, it is the wrong reason to do it. This is precisely how pork happens.
Its not like we are talking about linking drilling with building an Iroqouis museum in upstate New York. These are related and, arguably, both necessary.
I smell ‘eminent domain’ in the wind.
You are kidding, aren’t you? You don’t follow Obama?
Now there is a job for Obamaites. Just how independant can political appointees be?
Here is the complete speech, but by a non Obama supporter–but it is Obama speaking.
IN 52 SECS WHY BARACK OBAMA WON’T WIN THE GENERAL ELECTION
==========
It has been fun but Arizona’s primary is coming up and then I am off to Mecca on the Mississippi for the correct political convention. I will have the exalted job of sitting by the phone and listen to excuses as to why things can’t get done. A thrill a minute I hear. It is my first National Convention.
Gas has dropped around fifty cents per gallon in the St. Louis area.
Sorry, chapoutier. It was not my intention to sound snide if it came across that way. I may have misread who the “everybody” was in your previous quote because it was tied to the ‘political will of the dems’.
I am not opposed to compromise on the matter. Nor do I believe are the Republicans staying on the floor of the House. We (conservative Americans) are just only hearing compromise from the democratic leadership in sound bites and interviews but not on the floor where it matters.
The bottom line is that I believe most reasonable people today believe that drilling needs to happen. The leverage or political gain that the democrats might have gained on a compromise here is likely vanishing very quickly for them (at least among those of us that are paying attention).
chapoutier,
I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone on this site opposed to the government seeding of PROMISING technology. I don’t think Michelle has ever bashed reasonable programs of DARPA, DOE, NIH, etc.
What most of us WILL object to is using public funds to subsidize or mandating an uneconomic infrastructure. For example, we don’t want to pay bio diesel plants to spend $5 to make one gallon of fuel which is worth $3.25. We don’t want to pay wind turbine companies $0.11 to generate one kWH of energy worth $0.09.
I don’t mind giving grants to the labs which are working to create ECONOMICAL solutions. Once economical solutions are developed, then government can get out of the way (or merely support certain aspects of the an infrastructure development). However, we aren’t there yet. Maybe we can initiate significant build-out projects in 5 or 10 years. In the meantime – drill, baby.
Overall, I wouldn’t mind a compromise in which drilling is predicated upon research grants for promise technologies (or a nuclear infrastructure).
Of course technologies have to eventually prove their worth, but it takes a lot to get from A to B, including a fair amount of failure, things that we thought would work that just end up not panning out, and including the fact that even the most promising technologies often take years or decades to develop into profitability.
Again, there is no excuse for throwing good money after bad, but that is often not such a bright line with new technology.
The incentives, in my opinion, should be geared on rewarding success or easing transition of a new technology (tax breaks after the development, perhaps?) It should be something to help energize a company by reducing some of its risk, but it should not replace the much needed evaluation of the technology for its own sake.
Any incentive that smacks of giving a direction or suggesting an area of research would be problematic at best. For example, some politicians are probably still feeling the sting by trying to push corn for alternative fuel because they could not have anticipated all the downstream impacts.
Grant out money to do something specific and there will be no end of takers of said money even if doing that something has little chance of success. Rewarding success for helping solve a problem without trying to dictate or suggest the solution seems the best route.
I’m getting wordy here (apologies), but my specific point is that tying incentives to specific areas (wind, solar, geo, bio, etc) instead of to the problem in general would be a mistake as it changes how the R&D groups evaluate success.
If they say, “You can drill if we spend $1B on wind power”, we will spend $1B on wind power whether it works or is economical.
Salt and corkie,
Very fine points. And its funny how you were able to make them without resorting to calling me a marxist.
chapoutier, I am VERY acquainted with technology development. You’re right that sometimes, seemingly promising technologies can’t be developed into viable commercial products. On other occasions, $$millions are wasted on exploring technologies which aren’t seemingly promising. I could provide you with dozens of examples of this currently happening.
The $$millions being wasted on alternative energy technologies right now is astonishing. Dozens (if not more) companies are building out production lines or processing systems for alternative technologies which feel good, but aren’t commercially viable (even when subsidies are included in the models). Some of these companies and their investors are hoping for increased restrictions (taxes) on hydrocarbon based fuels or hoping for a lucrative, liquid domestic carbon credit market to emerge.
You might wonder why these companies are making these expenditures (and why their investors are funding these expenditures) despite the fact that their economic models don’t currently work. Well, these company managers/investors know that liberals would love to burden hydrocarbon fuel suppliers with heavy carbon taxes, in fact, they’re “banking”
on it.
I hope this helps you understand the situation, chapoutier. To clarify, I don’t mind using public funds to conduct R&D, but I certainly resent public funds being used to build an infrastructure based on CO2 concerns instead of energy concerns.
Well, you didn’t call me a fascist.
I don’t mind talking (or debating) with you because you’ll concede a point when it’s rational to do so. You have also been willing in the past to admit that there are flawed individuals or answers on the left rather than trying to divert attention by telling us about a republican you think is worse.
Hopefully I do the same (on both counts).
chapoutier, for the record, I respect your thoughtful debate on this subject. It’s obvious that you’ve put more thought into this than most.
Thank you, corkie. And I think that your last sentence makes a great point. In any case, I would hope that we could all look forward to a good dialog on this from our elected leaders.
Well said.
I didn’t call you a Marxist as an insult, but as a descriptive – every suggestion you make is couched in terms of government control, intervention, management, or funding. Socialism is as Socialism does. And we barely scratched the surface on how wrong you are on just about everything to do with the entire energy question – including your assumption that because we insist on drilling for domestic oil that we are in any way opposed to viable alternative methods of energy production. The only people who are adamantly opposed to one method or another are leftists, who oppose either oil or nuclear or both. And your personal avowal of support for nuclear power is irrelevant because you are a member of a tiny minority in the leftist ranks.
WOW! I’m late to the party, but this article was obviously written by someone with NO understanding of basic economics for people with NO understanding of basic economics.
We sell our oil at the highest possible MARGIN, not price. Worldwide commodity markets are efficient, however. The price is the same everywhere. Any arbitrage opportunities quickly disappear (traders/speculators at work). Take out cost of transport and the highest margin use for domestic oil is to sell it domestically.
The above statement is reckless given the fact that it was written by someone with stated confidence in their economic prowess. The price of oil is most definitely NOT the same everywhere. Much of the world’s oil is priced according to long term supply contracts.
The fact that you are simply referring to open market purchases is only obvious to those of us in the know.
Tax our oil to keep the international price up. It’s taxed at the well head as it leaves the ground so everybody pays that tax. Reduce other taxes to make up for it. The REAL price of oil, for Americans, can be as cheap as it is for Arabs in Saudi Arabia, under $10/barrel.
If the tax income becomes large enough use the money to “throw over the wall” to research oriented corporations – reduce their taxes for funding their research departments. Establish X-prizes with the excess. If you achieve a goal you not only get rich from the income for your development but you also get an immediate large award like the DARPA awards.
Regardless, we should take the excess taxes and use them in such a way as to push the US back into our 1940s and 1950s can-do attitude from our current can’t do malaise.
The “danger” is the huge amounts of oil “taxes” in the hands of the government. The enabling legislation should be written such that the oil taxes MUST be used to reduce all other taxes dollar for dollar with a 75% hyper-majority required to change that.
{^_^}
The one thing I am not seeing here is the words
Global Warmingeh.. Climate Change. This is the reason Democrats are opposed to drilling. Democrats think that using oil is heating the earth and causing our extinction. They have to do something about it now to save us. They have tried for years to do this with “environmentalism”, but it has not taken hold. Al Gore finally broke through with the Global Warming pitch. They see their chance now to make a difference and do not want to let it slip away. It’s pedal to the metal for them now (ironically). Their Global warming agenda takes precedence over poor people trying to survive with high gas prices. They see high gas prices as helping them in the Global Warming agenda. They like it that way.Unfortunately, they are trying to rub the magic oil lamp so the Alternative fuel Genie will appear and solve the problem. They know there are not alternative fuels available that would do the trick but they turn a blind eye to that reality and try to wish a solution on us. Throw some more money in the wishing well, get a lucky rabbits foot (synthethic of course for animal lovers). Click your heels Dorothy, the Wicked Speaker of the House has spoken. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It’s just not working.
I want a pill made from sewage & garbage that I can put in my energizer (motor) and it will run my vehicle for weeks with no emissions.
I can wish it were true but it is not. They think they can force a solution because they say so. Markets just do not work that way.
All that said, it’s only prudent for us to look for ways to improve energy so that it is better for the environment, cleaner, cheaper, safer, more efficient, etc. I just don’t think you can force it down our throats like the whole Global Warming thing is being done right now. True or not, my skepticism rises up when I am told the debate is over. Thats why Democrats have such a problem trying to expain it. They know the truth, they just push it aside to pursue their goal of saving the planet. Doesn’t matter if many suffer in the process. The end justifies the means.
we started the environmental wind solar renewable fuel debate in 1978 under president carter, and in the ensuing 30 years, not one of these energy resources have proven it can survive without massive government subsidies. i am all for developing these energy sources, but if they can’t be viable when oil is at $125 per barrel, and they can’t be viable after 30 years of government subsidies, they sound like a pipe dream. drill for oil! it’s the only short term answer, if you see 30 years as short term, build nuclear, if you value air conditioning, and bring in european diesel vehicles which get 25% better fuel mileage, and could be run on biodiesel mixes which are far more efficatious than ethanol as they use recycled vegetable oils, not virgin food supplies. just an observation from the cheapseats.